Mr. Holly Retiring After 42 Years

Richard Holly came to Maryland to help his buddies split a tank of gas.

Some 42 years later, Holly is retiring as a living legend at Havre de Grace High School.

Friday was Holly’s last day with students after spending parts of six decades teaching business, math, physical education, technology, and serving as a coach for multiple sports at Havre de Grace.

“I didn’t even know I was coming down here for an interview until 10 o’clock the night before, when three people I [was] in classes with, they were out the night before and said, 'Hey we’re going to Maryland tomorrow, do you want to ride along? We need a fourth person to split the gas money,'” Holly recalled. “At that time, I wasn’t really sure where I wanted to go or what I wanted to try to teach. So I said, 'What the heck?'"

Holly and his friends went to Baltimore County first, Harford County second.

“There were four of us in the car,” Holly said. “We went home with six job offers. I had to choose between Havre de Grace and Patapsco. For $6,200 or $6,300—it was $100 more in Baltimore County.”

Holly was drawn to Havre de Grace. It helped that he had a friend—Rick Post, who taught at Bel Air and C. Milton Wright—who lived in Bel Air and needed a roommate.

“He went nuts because his roommate was getting married and he needed a roommate,” Holly said. “It all fell together in a matter of days, that I had a job and a place to live.”

Days followed.

Weeks.

Years.

Decades.

Holly has seen most of Havre de Grace in his time at Havre de Grace High School.

“It’s been a lot of people, a lot of great people that have come and gone, a lot of students that I’ve taught that came back here to teach. A lot of students who have become other things in the community,” Holly said. “Not too many people in the city of Havre de Grace that are native to here, who are age 60 and under, that I didn’t know or teach.”

Holly coached baseball, basketball and tennis at Havre de Grace at various times during his tenure.

And he almost left HHS—relying on a baseball theme to describe the process that led to him staying in Havre de Grace for his entire career.

“I tried to leave here three times. Not because I was dissatisfied with anything in Havre de Grace,” Holly said. “When Joppatowne opened in 1972, before I was really entrenched here, the principal here who was moving down there, wanted me to move down there to be a teacher and coach. I thought, ‘Brand new high school, great.’ And I didn’t get it. A whole bunch of us put in for a transfer, and I was the only one who didn’t get it. I found out later, it was going to be only one business teacher, and he was forced to take somebody else. So I didn’t get that. Strike one.

"When C. Milton Wright opened, I knew the principal at C. Milton Wright, Bob Garbacik. He said he would love me on his staff. I said I would love to come, a brand new school, again. Maybe coach baseball or something. And, again, the business opening that needed to happen didn’t happen, and there was nothing we could do about it, and so I didn’t get it. Strike two.

"And at one point I thought I wanted to go and work in the business and finance up at the board. There was an administrative assistant in finance position that opened up. I applied for it, had all kind of recommendations, got down to the final two, and for some reason, they took a person outside the school system, rather than inside the school system, because, I heard at the time, the president of the board of education, wanted someone with real world experience and not classroom experience.”

Holly has provided a classroom experience for many now working in the real world during his 42 years at Havre de Grace High School. He’s also seen the school change.

“I was low man on the totem pole [in 1968-69], and down where the boiler room is now on the first floor on the way into the cafeteria, that was my first room. I was low man of four teaching typing and business math,” Holly said from his most recent home on the third floor.

“There was no auditorium. There were no renovations in this building,” Holly said. “It was the old building that had, right about where the first floor pod is, where [math teacher Greg] Long’s room would be, that was a multi-purpose room, where they had phys ed classes before they had the second gym back there. It served the purpose of the auditorium because it had folding chairs and a stage. Then you would take down the chairs, and you would have a linoleum floor so you could play floor hockey and things in there.”

Holly has seen the facilities around the school change, too—although not as quickly as he or most others would have liked. He’s been instrumental in the building of James R. Harris Stadium, and he’s often found running the scoreboard in the press box at Warriors sporting events.

That won’t change in retirement.

Holly plans to spend time visiting family—including grandchildren in Florida—and on his family’s property near Romney, W.V.

He said—citing a number of reasons—that his decision to retire was rather easy at this stage in his career.

He said he has more than a year worth of sick and vacation days from his tenure.

So as the buses roll on Pennington Avenue today, three floors below the windows on Holly’s room, the veteran teacher won’t have any regrets.

“Would not change a thing,” he said.